


before it's too late (save yourself)

by shineyma



Series: walk away [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Episode: s01e19 The Only Light in the Darkness, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 06:50:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8654950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: Jemma can't find Agent Koenig anywhere.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I CANNOT BELIEVE I've finally finished this. I started this stupid sequel approximately five minutes after finishing the original, and now, more than a year later, it is FINALLY DONE. *confetti* Yay!
> 
> I'm still behind on comment replies because I'm the worst. And I've got a 20 page paper due on Sunday that I haven't even started yet *sob*, so....it'll be a while yet. Sorry!
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

Jemma can’t find Agent Koenig anywhere.

He’s not in the kitchen. The lounge is empty. The conservatory is an interesting find and quite a beautiful room, but devoid of any agents whatsoever. Likewise, the game room is filled only with games and furniture—not a single person to be found anywhere.

By the time she checks the swimming pool and finds it, too, deserted, she’s beginning to fear there’s something wrong. Perhaps he’s run off and left them here—perhaps he’s actually HYDRA, not SHIELD, and has set a terrible trap for them. Perhaps…

No. No, she refuses to follow that train of thought. Just because the world has fallen apart is no reason to distrust _everyone_. She won’t think like Victoria Hand did; that’s not the sort of person she wants to be. She’s certain there’s a reasonable explanation for Koenig’s sudden disappearance.

Even though he’s not in any of the bedrooms, either, nor their attached bathrooms.

As she searches the labs (impressive and extensive, especially for a base in the middle of nowhere, and were things not as they are, she could very easily get distracted by them), new and worse suspicions begin to grow. It’s not only that he’s nowhere to be found, it’s that he’s not answering her calls of his name.

Perhaps something terrible has happened to him. Perhaps he’s suffered a heart attack, or a stroke, or an aneurysm. Jemma’s been reading up on such occurrences since she was assigned to the team—or, rather, since Coulson informed her she would be acting as team medic—and she’s been horrified by just how many ways even the healthiest-seeming people might drop dead at any moment. That’s always a risk.

Or perhaps an accident? What if he tripped and hit his head, or tipped a bookcase over on himself, or something of the like? What if he’s collapsed somewhere, bleeding out or in need of help, while she fruitlessly checks every aisle in the (also extensive) library?

Or perhaps…perhaps it’s even worse than that. Perhaps, somehow, someone else has made it into the base. It’s huge; it can’t be _totally_ secure. Perhaps there’s a serial killer among them, sneaking through Providence, intending to cross Koenig, Jemma, and Grant off one by one while they’re separated, and when the team returns—

“Oh, stop it, Jemma,” she says to herself. The sound of her own voice does _not_ make her jump. “You’re being ridiculous.” She takes a look around the empty (of Koenig, at least) storage closet and shakes her head. “Too many horror films with Skye, that’s all.”

Still…maybe she’ll go find Grant instead of searching any further. He won’t laugh at her sudden paranoia, despite the fact she’d likely deserve it. Even if she’s being silly, he won’t say so; he’ll only reassure her, and then he’ll find Koenig—probably tucked away in some corner napping or something similarly harmless.

Fortunately, she knows _precisely_ where Grant is, and as she turns to leave the closet, she’s already preparing the best way to introduce this topic. It’s been a long week—hence her nerves being beyond shot—and if she opens with _something’s wrong_ , he’s liable to panic.

But there’s no cause for panic, of course, even though—

—even though there’s blood dripping down the wall.

She doesn’t want to look. She really, truly, doesn’t want to look.

Heart pounding, she does.

Above the doorway, there is a vent. In that vent is a very bloody and extremely deceased Agent Koenig.

Jemma screams. Loudly.

It _must_ be loudly, because even as she’s stumbling back, away from the vent, she can hear Grant call her name—hear his running footsteps. She tries to call out to him, to let him know where she is, but her voice won’t work. It sticks in her throat like tar; even when she gives up on speaking and tries to scream again instead, all she manages is a hoarse squeak.

She’s had nightmares about this (nightmares about being terrified and cornered, about trying and trying and trying to call for help, but always failing) so frequently that for a moment, she dares to hope—

But her back hits the shelves and a sharp edge digs in, and it _hurts_.

She’s awake.

If she’s awake, though, she’s also not alone. Grant skids to a stop in the open doorway and is just as quickly moving again, crossing the closet to gather her in a hug. She must hurt him with how hard she clings back—he has _two cracked ribs_ , for goodness’ sake!—but he gives no sign of it, only holds her close and shushes her.

Shushes her?

Oh. She’s crying.

She tries to explain herself—she’s hardly the weepy sort, she must be terrifying him with this—but only manages a choked and nonsensical, “I was looking—the vent—blood—Koenig’s _dead_ —”

“Shh, shh,” he murmurs. “It’s okay, Jem. I got you.”

He _does_ have her. His arms are warm and strong and if this were any other moment, she’d be overjoyed to have them around her. It’s only the second time he’s ever hugged her; the first was after the Chitauri virus, when he held her at the base in Morocco as she shook and shook. She’s considered asking for a hug after every harrowing mission since, but his reticence always stopped her; she didn’t want to make him uncomfortable.

But he doesn’t seem uncomfortable now. He’s steady, a rock holding her up even as he holds her close. There’s no hint of awkwardness in his voice.

“You’re fine,” he promises. “I’m right here, sweetheart.”

The endearment sends a strange thrill through her—though not, to her surprise, an entirely pleasant one. He’s never called her that before. It strikes her as odd he can do it—and so effortlessly, so _confidently_ —now.

“Come on,” he says, even as he rubs gentle circles on her back, “you’ll feel better out of this closet.”

She undoubtedly would, but—

But there’s something wrong. Something more than his easy endearment and steady comfort.

He _hugged_ her. He came straight into this storage closet and hugged her. He didn’t sweep it for threats first—he didn’t even have his gun drawn when he appeared at the door. He simply moved straight to comforting her without a second thought, as though he _knew_ that she wasn’t in danger, that she’d only had a fright. But there’s no way he could know that, unless…

He’s not surprised. That’s what’s wrong. He didn’t react to her stammering pronouncement of Koenig’s fate. He hasn’t even _glanced_ at the vent. He’s not surprised at all to find Koenig murdered, even though this base is supposedly secure.

There’s only one reasonable explanation…but it’s not reasonable at all.

“Jemma?” Grant asks. He pulls back to look at her, and she realizes as he does so that she’s let go of him. Her arms have fallen, slack, to her side—a physical rejection of the truth she’s just landed on.

“No.” It shudders out of her, a barely audible plea. “No, please.”

It’s all she can manage, and it _should_ leave him confused. _No what_ , he should ask.

Instead, he winces, and it’s all the confirmation she needs.

She rips herself away from him with a wordless cry. Even she doesn’t know what it’s meant to convey—anger? Fear? Betrayal?

It’s not just that he murdered Koenig. It’s that he murdered him and _left him in a vent_. If it was self-defense, if it was because Koenig was a traitor, there would be no reason to hide Koenig’s body.

That only leaves—

“You’re HYDRA?” she asks. The strength that’s drained out of her limbs, leaving her clutching the shelves for support, seems to have all traveled to her voice; it’s remarkably even.

“John saved my life,” he says—simply and unapologetically. As though she should’ve realized, should’ve _known_ , from the moment Garrett revealed himself as the Clairvoyant. As though she should’ve suspected him at once, rather than trusting he was everything she thought he was. “I’d follow him anywhere.”

“Even to kidnapping Coulson?” she demands. She looks to her hands, seeing past their current white-knuckled grip and remembering them stained with her best friend’s blood. “To shooting Skye?”

“I didn’t know he was gonna do that,” he says, as if that’s any excuse at all. “No one was supposed to get hurt—”

“You murdered Koenig!” It comes out as nearly a shriek, and she takes a moment to catch her breath, to push away the urge to scream and scream and never stop. “It doesn’t matter what was _supposed_ to happen. What matters is what _did_.”

He stares at her for a long moment, then sighs and turns away, head falling back in what seems, absurdly, to be exasperation.

(Jemma shivers at the thought of looking up. The closet is small; from here, his peripheral vision must be catching Koenig’s body.)

(But then, it _wouldn’t_ bother him, would it? Not when he’s the one who put it there.)

When he turns to face her again, his expression is wholly unfamiliar. “You’re not gonna let me talk you down from this, huh?”

There’s something terrifyingly final in his tone, and Jemma fights past a rush of tears and terror. He’s nothing at all like she thought he was, that much is clear, but is the man he truly is _that_ bad? Is he the sort of man who would kill his own soulmate?

An awful, hollow part of her almost hopes he is. Death would be easier, surely, than living with this—with his lack of remorse, with his casual approach to murder and betrayal.

(He hasn’t said a single thing in defense of killing Agent Koenig. Perhaps he doesn’t feel it needs justifying.)

She thinks of the kiss they shared not even an hour ago, the kiss that filled her with such giddy hope, and her stomach turns.

“No,” she says—chokes, really. It has to be forced out past the sob caught in her throat. “No, I’m not.”

“Okay.” He blows out a breath. “Well. I’m gonna be honest with you, sweetheart, this isn’t going to plan. I had a whole…” He stops, sighs again. “Look, I’d love to hash this out with you, okay? Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for a reason, and I know you’ll understand once I’ve explained—and once you’ve had a chance to calm down.”

The aside infuriates her. He makes it sound as if she’s a child throwing a tantrum, as though her refusal to understand is some emotional response and not a _reasonable reaction_ to learning that her soulmate is _HYDRA_. As though all she needs is a nap and a time out and her betrayal and horror will fade away.

“Problem is,” he continues, and suddenly he’s right in front of her, arms caging her in as he grips the shelves behind her, “I’m on a time limit. I don’t know what John’ll do if I’m not back in time, but it definitely won’t be pretty.”

“Then _go_ ,” she snaps, and if her voice trembles…well, she’s past caring what he thinks of her.

“I will,” he says. “And you’re coming with me.”

If she doesn’t laugh, she’ll cry. So she laughs.

“I am not going _anywhere_ with you,” she says, slowly and carefully. “Ever.”

Jemma has spent months cataloguing Grant’s smiles, holding each and every one close to her heart as a treasured gift. The one he gives her now is nothing at all like the others; it’s not shy, not reluctant, not even teasing.

It’s terrifying.

“Yeah,” he says, “you are.”

It’s not an argument, it’s a statement of fact. He’s taller and stronger than her, a highly trained specialist who could overpower her on his worst day and her best. They’re alone (save for the corpse of a man he murdered) in the middle of nowhere. The team is hours away and has no reason to suspect anything is wrong.

His voice echoes in her ears. Not this, not his frightening confidence that she’ll be leaving with him, but what he said earlier: “People can break.”

She’s certain, distantly, that this is what he meant. Staring up at him, facing the certainty that he means to take her away from here—take her _to_  HYDRA—against her will, she can feel herself beginning to crack. All it would take is one blow to shatter her completely.

One blow.

Would he hit her? The Grant she thought she knew wouldn’t have dreamed of it, would have been sickened by the mere suggestion. This one, though—this one who murders good men, who followed a monster into the monster’s den and means to drag her along after him…

She doesn’t know. She doesn’t _want_ to know.

(He also said she’d get a lot worse than death for refusing HYDRA. Would he—?)

“I want to stay here,” she tries. It’s all she can _think_ to try. She can’t fight him, physically or otherwise. She may be a genius, but he’s trained in manipulation; any attempt at a battle of wits would be sure to end in disaster.

All she can do is ask.

Grant’s face softens, and for a moment, she thinks…

“You’ll understand,” he says. Her heart sinks. “You just need time. And you won’t get that time here, so I’m sorry, but you’re coming with me.”

She shakes her head wordlessly. She’s lost her fight against her tears, but stacked up against everything else, a bit of crying just doesn’t seem to matter.

Grant cradles her face between his hands, brushing her tears away with his thumbs.

“Please don’t make me force you, sweetheart,” he murmurs, and it sounds like nothing so much as a threat.

It’s not really that she can’t fight him. It’s that she can’t _win_. Fighting him would be pointless, a waste of energy—a useless wound to her already damaged heart.

Skye would fight him anyway. May would fight and win.

Jemma lets him take her hand and follows him docilely to the Bus, crying all the way.


End file.
